


Caring is Not an Advantage

by whitchry9



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Episode: s01e10 Nelson v. Murdock, Fighting, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 17:44:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5426057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt lets Foggy leave. Then he cries.</p><p>Foggy hears Matt crying and wonders if he should go back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caring is Not an Advantage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Idlewild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idlewild/gifts).



> To my dear recipient: I have received your request for another fic, and rest assured, it is coming as well, and it promises to be longer. So take this for now and look forward to another gift coming soon.

Matt hated the way the tears spilled over, hot and sticky on his face. He was a grown man; he shouldn't be crying over something as simple as a fight with his best friend.

 _But it's not simple,_ a voice in his head that sounded remarkably like Stick told him. _Your friend just found out the worst thing about you, and guess what? He hates you for it. People are just distractions._

 

Matt shook his head. No, that wasn't true. Foggy was so much to him. Foggy was the reason he made it through law school, the reason he wasn't wishing to slit his wrists with depositions at Landman and Zack, the reason he'd been able to hold off from doing what he finally did for so long.

Because he knew Foggy would be disappointed. It was an inevitable fact of life that Foggy Nelson would be disappointed in Matt Murdock's life choices.

 

He'd known it was a long time coming. There was no better way this could end.

Foggy would always find out, and he would always be upset.

Matt just never thought it would happen precisely in this way, with Elena dead and him unconscious and bleeding on the floor of his apartment. He couldn't blame Foggy for being angry at that.

But there were so many other ways this could have played out. Matt could have sat him down one day, started with the bruises, or maybe with the little girl. Rage always snaked around his heart when Matt thought of her, and this time was no exception. Maybe he would start off with telling Foggy about his senses, about how he'd nearly told him so many times before, but got too afraid or too worried that he wouldn't believe him.

And he was right, in the end. Foggy didn't believe him.

 

A sob escaped his throat. The tears were coming steadily, running down his face, the salt water stinging in some of the cuts, but the pain was nothing compared to the one in his side or the one in his heart. He felt hollow. His best friend just walked out, and Matt let him.

_You could have stopped him._

Logically, Matt tried to tell himself he couldn't have. Because everything hurt and he's sure that if he got up his feet would be unsteady beneath him, and even after the fluids Claire must have given him (bandage in the crook of his arm, the line already gone before he woke up) there was the risk of passing out from lack of blood if he tried to move.

 

So Matt did all he knew how to do. He shuffled down the couch so his head was near the end, near the pillow, and sobbed into it. Because Foggy wasn't coming back, and he had to admit that.

 

That's what people did with him. They left.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Foggy was on the third floor landing when he heard the sobbing start. Then it stopped. Or at least he couldn't hear it anymore, not over the sounds of crappy daytime TV coming from the apartment to his left.

 

He almost couldn't tell what it was for a minute. He hadn't heard it for a long time, not since the first Christmas they'd spent together, when Foggy took Matt home to meet his family, and Matt disappeared in the middle of the festivities. Foggy found him curled up on the bed, crying into a pillow, apologizing for the tear stains. Foggy wanted to laugh, but it was too sad. Instead he just sat with Matt and listened as he talked about the first Christmas after his father died. Eventually they went back downstairs and ate trifle.

With the glasses, no one was able to tell Matt had been a mess only twenty minutes earlier. And if Foggy hadn't gone looking for him, he wouldn't have known either.

That was just the way Matt suffered, silently, stoically, alone.

 

And now, after Foggy left him, that was probably what he was doing.

 

Foggy could picture it- Matt, curled up into a tiny ball, with his stupid socks pulled over his pants and the hoodie that zipped up both ways. His face would be pressed into a pillow, because a childhood of mostly growing up in an orphanage taught him how to muffle his cries so others wouldn't hear.

Foggy wondered if that position would tear the stitches his nurse friend spent so long putting in. Then Foggy reminded himself he didn't care. Couldn't care.

 

But, shit. He did. Foggy always cared, far too much.

 

Foggy closed his eyes tightly and reminded himself of the reasons he was so angry at Matt.

_He's the man in the mask. He tried to kill someone. He led to a man's death. He's acting outside the law._

But all Foggy could see behind the darkness was Matt lying on the floor, yes, in the costume, but also covered in blood and in pain. It was the single most horrifying thing he'd seen in his life.

And seeing Matt like that, it did things to him. It made him want to wrap the guy up in a blanket and keep him safe from the world for the rest of their lives.

 

But now, remembering that also made him feel other things, less nurturing instincts. Because no matter how hurt Matt was, he'd brought that upon himself, dressing up with a mask and going out to fight criminals.

 

 _He could have died,_ Foggy's brain reminded him, the traitor. _He probably would have died it it wasn't for you. You saved him. He needs you. You should go back up there, make sure he hasn't torn his stitches, make sure he isn't dehydrated from crying._

 

And Foggy had to admit, his brain was making some good points.

But Matt had lied so much, twisted around everything they both cared about, put their firm, their friendship, even their lives on the line.

And Foggy didn't think he should forgive that.

 

So he waited, just another minute, to hear if there would be anything else. For any sort of sign.

And waited.


End file.
